


River sings to you

by xRenx



Series: What a heavenly way to die [1]
Category: K-pop, SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Caring, Domestic Violence, Fluff, Gay Male Character, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I was 15 then don't judge me, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jeonghan is like an angel, Love, M/M, Mittens - Freeform, Romance, Sad, Sad Ending, Scribbles, Self-Harm, Seungcheol is worried, Sketches, Suicide Attempt, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-28 02:57:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18202577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xRenx/pseuds/xRenx
Summary: He was so beautiful, so so beautiful, and I realized it way too late.I knew something was wrong, but it only became obvious after the scribbles he did to the corners of his notebooks became darker and messier, and he started hiding them from me.I wish I would've reacted faster.





	River sings to you

**Author's Note:**

> The storyteller is Seungcheol, the boy he's describing being Jeonghan, just to clarify this a bit.
> 
> Also, this story is supposed to be a bit different by style so don't be surprised by some short and somewhat "stiff" sentences, they're there for a reason.
> 
> I warn you, it's pretty sad and heartbreaking, so don't read if you're really sensitive to these kinds of topics. Only the end might be a bit shocking.
> 
> Also, this is one of my favorite stories from the ones I've written, so I hope you enjoy too. (Well... Until I got a lil better at writing)
> 
> If by the end of the story you have some idea of what you'd like me to write, or just simply want to give me an idea for the next story, I'd appreciate it a whole lot since I tend to get writer's blocks quite often...

I didn't know what it was. I didn't really think it'd go so far. He hurt everyone, but everyone pitied him. It wasn't his fault.

 _He was so so beautiful_. So beautiful that people would turn their gaze to him when he walked past them with a shy smile. His pearl-smooth skin and glimmering eyes, soft hair that he swiped behind his ear for it to not fall on his face were sure to gather glances. He was admired by everyone, yet no one ever said it out loud. He knew it though, or at least I think he did. 

It took me long to realize that something had made him to forget about it. 

Despite being very much normal person with normal hobbies and school, he was also special. Not only because every person in the world was different. Not because he danced and sang and was really good at them either. Not even because he didn't have a "real" father but a stepfather, a mother with many phobias, 4 years older brother who still lived at home, and a 9-year-old little sister. But because he just was a bit special. 

He had a secret. A secret that only few trusted people knew. And like expected from a secret that big, it was not taken well by everyone. Not even those few trusted ones. 

\---- 

At first I didn't notice that anything would be different. He had always been skilled at drawing, and always sketched and scribbled down something to the corners of his notebook during lessons. I thought they were really amazing and I often praised them. Usually he just laughed at my comments. telling me I was silly, and had this look in his eyes, that told me it was useless for me to praise him, but also that my words made him really happy. To me it felt like people never even realised those small details he did, because no one paid attention to them. But I stared at them in awe. They had the same kind of perfectionism and personality as in their maker. 

Little by little those drawings started to turn messier and messier, containing more and more text, and he started hiding them from me and scribbled over them if I tried to glance at them when sitting next to him. One day I saw a word that he had overlined and scribbled over so many times that the paper had almost broken. That's when I knew everything wasn't alright. 

He started to seem more and more tired and skinnier as the days went by, so I tried asking him what was wrong, but he would only answer with short "I'm okay, don't worry". He may have thought so, but I had no intention to let things just be. 

\----

Became a day when I was walking him home after he had been at my place babysitting my little brother with me, and I asked him once more, what was wrong. And he broke down. He fell on his knees and his face got wet with the tears that ran wildly down his cheeks. I kneeled down next to him, silence painting my face and sealing my tongue as I hugged him, not knowing what else I could've done in that situation.

Came out that his stepfather had hit his sister and of course he had tried stopping him, getting a few nice bruises here and there himself too, and on top of that his "parents" had given him a piece of their minds.

A few days after that he had given out the secret he had been holding in, the biggest one, that only I knew and his mother had thrown him out for "having such a disgrace as a son". He had lived in the basement of their apartment building for the last few days because he thought he didn't want to burden me with it. 

The story was heart breaking to listen to. He had suffered through all that, and I didn't have a clue.

I helped him up and walked him back to my place, holding my hand securely on his shoulders, not letting go of him until we were safely in my room. I gave him a bit too big t-shirt to sleep on, and laid him down on my bed, petting his head, playing with his hair until the tears stopped and his eyes closed, face frowning. I set myself a mattress next to the bed, holding my hand on the edge of the bed, as I too fell into a restless sleep. 

The next day he didn't have the energy to get up from bed. 

I told the teachers he was sick. 

No one cared after all. He was 18, so we couldn't even call the social workers for child abuse. I bet it wasn't even the first time. 

\---- 

Two weeks after that I came home from school and found him lying on the bathroom floor lifelessly. There was a kitchen knife next to him and thin red lines decorated his wrists almost as an evident of why the knife was there, some still bleeding slowly. There was also an opened bottle of sleeping pills, littered around the tile-floor. A picture of that scene would be imprinted in my head as long as I lived. 

The ambulance came in 10 minutes, taking away his scattered form of life, letting my tears flow freely. Thank god it wasn't too late, I don't know what I would've done if I hadn't come in time.

\---- 

He got "home" after a week, but the requirements were that I would have to try take him to school with me, and if that wouldn't succeed, he'd have to have someone watching over him all the time. I felt myself so guilty, such a bad person, because I hadn't noticed. It felt like it was all my fault, even though I wasn't sure if I could've even done anything beforehand. 

He had nightmares often. Horrible, agonising nightmares, that made him throw his hands around, yanking the sheets and whine, until he would either snap up crying and gasping, or I would go to sleep next to him, pulling him to my arms securely. There he would sleep perfectly well and calmly. Soon it wasn't even me crawling next to him from the mattress in the middle of the night, but going to sleep next to him straight in the beginning.

\---- 

I don't know where he got the idea from, but one day he went back home. He said he just "wanted to see how his sister was doing, and if they would've loosened up their attitude a bit". They hadn't. He came back broken into even smaller pieces - if it was even possible anymore - a cut in his brow and purplish red marks around his neck. 

He didn't say anything, but it was obvious that his stepfather had assaulted him. 

I can't even describe how much hate I felt towards that guy then. 

\---- 

He was really quiet for the next few days - like he wouldn't have had been before that too. He talked about some basic things, like what we would eat that day - if he would even touch his food - or asked my little brother about his day. Otherwise he shut himself to the core he had made around him. It wasn't like he wouldn't have cried himself to sleep on my shoulder telling me how shitty place the world was - the core wasn't that strong - but everything else he shut out. 

That was when I was afraid of coming home every night.

He was usually never left alone, since mom was always there with him and my brother, or then she would take them somewhere. It was like Han would've been his son too. 

But this one night when I missed my bus and came home an hour later than usually, and mom had had to go to some meeting, he was left alone with my little brother. I was afraid of what he would do, but I thought that maybe I would have to trust him as my best friend, and since my mother trusted him, but I wasn't that blind to the situation. 

When I came home, the television was on and my brother had fallen asleep on the couch while watching it. I turned off the tv, walking to my brother and pulling a blanket on top of him to let him sleep there a little longer. I walked around the house, but not even a single breath was heard anywhere. I started shouting his name even, but still got no answer. I ran through every single room, but he was nowhere to be found. 

Finally when I came back downstairs, I noticed a piece of paper under the carpet of the hallway. It was a letter. 

\---- 

In a way I knew what he was planning on doing, but maybe I was just hoping for it to not happen. That he wouldn't be able to do it, to leave us. 

I put on my shoes and ran, ran like my life would have depended on the steps that echoed from the hard pavement in the middle of a concrete maze. 

Apparently I still didn't make it there early enough. 

I was at a small shabby bridge that crossed a few meters wide river a bit away from the cosy lights of the nearby apartment buildings. It was the place where we used to play a lot as kids. 

I walked closer and thought that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't have done it. That just maybe I would see him smiling at me while he'd startle me and then laugh. Or I would catch him crying and embrace him tightly, walking back home. 

But instead I was met with red mittens laid directly in the middle of the bridge. He had hid one of the sharpest kitchen knives under them. I lifted them up, looking over the railing to the wildly flowing river. A few droplets of blood dropped down from the edge of the railing, mixing with the dark water under me. I watched the water swirl from the flow and rocks littered across the bottom of the river, imagining his expression in my head as he had stared at the exact same scene in front of him just moments ago. 

I wish he had known. Known how much I actually loved him, more than just a best friend. That those words whispered in the middle of the night to calm him down in my warm embrace weren't just nonsense. Known how much others actually cared, not only me. 

Now he was running towards heaven with the river's encouragement, and we would never see him again. 

_I wish he's happy now, that he doesn't have to suffer anymore._ I thought as I threw the knife to the river, tears flowing uncontrollably like waterfalls falling down my cheeks, hearing a faint "clink" as it hit some rock. I took the mittens and put them on, smiling a bit, as I took a firm hold of the railing, pushing myself up on top of it. 

Despite the sorrow and anxiety inside of me, I felt somehow calm as I stared at the river in front of me. 

Soon I could feel my body make contact with the dark water. It covered my ears and eyes, throwing me here and there with the flow.

I wasn't afraid. It felt just like he would've been there embracing me. Like it would've been his hot breath against my neck as the water filled my lungs.

It was like the river was singing, as it filled my ears. 

_Just like your beautiful voice._

I'll be there soon, let the river sing to you too till then, dear Jeonghan.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! If you made it to the end of the story, I'm thankful! 
> 
> This was also one of the stories I've written as a 15-year-old angsty teenager (like Don't worry I'm okay) but I thought it was good-enough to be re-made :3 
> 
> I finished this around 1am so don't be surprised if there's mistakes!


End file.
